Call centers are equipped and staffed for the provision to end-users of information services, especially technical support and reservation services. End-users may be: retail consumers, occupants of residential dwellings, hotel guests, tourists, employees of supply channel or distribution channel partners, consultants, internal staff, maintenance contract subscribers, travelers, among others.
Advanced call centers usually comprise: connectivity to public and private wide area networks, a call distribution system (either circuit switched or packet-switched, e.g., Voice over Internet Protocol, data call, instant message, for example), a local area network, applications software, World Wide Web servers, database servers, application servers, workstations, wide area network connectivity, and personnel who operate workstations or “seats” in the call center and interact with callers to the call center.